1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to lithography, and, in particular, to the use of a lithographic stack including a spin-on material, hard mask and a photosensitive developable bottom anti-reflective coating (dBARC) instead of a silicon-containing anti-reflective coating (SiARC).
2. Background Information
In lithography for non-planar semiconductor structures, a typical lithographic stack includes an organic planarizing layer (OPL), a silicon-containing anti-reflective coating (SiARC) and photoresist. Unfortunately, the various layers are not always a constant thickness in all areas of a wafer, which leads to potential defects in the features created. Further, the use of SiARC comes at the cost of a complex strip process, as a standard etch typically will not remove all of the SiARC material.
Thus, a need exists for improvements to lithographic stacks used with non-planar semiconductor structures.